A turning point for Congress

A wheel that began to turn in 1969, when Mrs Indira Gandhi split the Congress and changed the fundamental structure of a party shaped by Mahatma Gandhi, has come full circle.

Gandhi reinvented Congress between 1920 and 1921, during his first and arguably his finest mass movement, by lifting it out of the clutches of patriotic professionals and bulking out the base through grassroot membership. He was not embarrassed about declaring himself dictator of the mass struggle, but he was not equally authoritarian within the party. He fused command with consideration, turned the tremendous adoration that the poor offered him into an asset for the party, and ensured its credibility through regular elections. There was even the historic occasion on which his candidate was defeated by Subhas Chandra Bose. His word prevailed, but he was never bigger than the Congress. He turned the party into the vehicle of his 28-year-old freedom struggle, with benefits that have not entirely disappeared even today.

Nehru was Gandhi’s heir, and while he understood that stress of power would encourage less democratic tendencies, the Congress remained the only guarantor of stability. But Indira Gandhi was Nehru’s heir; and the dominant role that Nehru played in the Congress government perhaps began to squeeze the distance between individual and organization. She began to see the organization as a problem, rather than an anchor.

The split of 1969 was a first step. Her landslide victory in the 1971 general elections destroyed the ragtag bunch of opposition parties; but that was less important to her than humiliation suffered by the aptly named Congress (Organization). The parent became the rump. It wilted and disappeared. Politics has no space for losers.

Ideals cannot compete with success. There was an attempt to go back to tradition after Mrs Gandhi’s defeat in 1977, but all questions were buried in the avalanche of her victory in 1980. A theory became fact in the party’s imagination: Congress wins elections not through party organization but through family charisma, anti-poverty slogans and pre-poll distribution of largesse towards that broad rubric called the poor, with specific attention to vote banks like Dalits and Muslims. As that supreme loyalist of Mrs Gandhi, Dev Kant Barooah, put it, Congress cannot be defeated as long as “Ali and coolie” vote for it. The setbacks of 1990s were attributed to absence of family at the helm, and reforms that the poor could not understand. When Sonia Gandhi became president, the firm was back in business on old terms.

The historic impact of this year’s UP assembly elections, spearheaded by the Gandhi family, has not yet been analysed. “Ali”, the Muslim vote, dismissed Rahul Gandhi’s promise of 17% job reservations as a desperate ploy. But the most revealing aspect of the defeat was the comprehensive rout in the family’s pocket boroughs, Rae Bareli and Amethi. The decisive shift came, in my estimate, when Priyanka Gandhi took her children along, and Robert Vadra asked for his share as reward for passing on the genes. Today’s voter wants governance today, not a king tomorrow.

Family and slogans will not immediately disappear, but they are trading at a heavy discount. It is often difficult to recognize change even when it comes armed with a torchlight through the fog. But there is a distinct pattern. In a reversal of the past, Congress parties without the family are winning elections against the Congress. Mamata Banerjee is a recent instance. Jagan Reddy will do in Andhra Pradesh what Mamata did in Bengal. Sharad Pawar, who is the first modern rebel against the family, sold himself short when he compromised with the Congress for a secondary place in office. If he had remained alone, Maharashtra would have been his by now. Overlaps and inconsistency might blur the picture, but there is a picture.

Pawar’s seniority and political goodwill make him the ideal person to revive what might be called a Congress (O). But the leader who will be critical to the process will be Mamata Banerjee, who should be considered heir of Atulya Ghosh, the Bengal party supremo who was decimated by Mrs Gandhi in 1969 and 1971. Jagan Reddy would complete the immediate triangle, but the geometry of expansion can take many shapes. If Congress goes back to a federal culture of equals at the decision table, there is no reason why Naveen Patnaik, son of Biju, should not be part of this old-new Congress. You can go a step further, and add Nitish Kumar, whose JD(U) is dependent on his political fortunes. This club could easily have more MPs in the next Lok Sabha than the official Congress.

A Congress collapse will leave a dangerous vacuum at the heart of India’s politics. A historic inflexion point has arrived. Pawar and Mamata Banerjee should seize this moment.